


Deep-rooted

by Majesty_Clark



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Gen, Into The Spardaverse Week, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29408841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majesty_Clark/pseuds/Majesty_Clark
Summary: Vergil was sick of being treated like a child. He was just as strong as the rest of them.------------------------This is the bonus chapter for my “The Healing of a Broken Heart” story. If you haven’t read it then this isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense.
Relationships: Dante & Lady & Trish (Devil May Cry), Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Lady & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Trish & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Deep-rooted

**Author's Note:**

> Tw panic  
> Tw references to past trauma
> 
> Both start when the demon shows up. Lots of references to blood and old wounds from past trauma, so be wary. 
> 
> This was not originally a part of the 7 chapters I had planned out for the story. It was brought to us by the wonderful, soul-crushing, Visions of V that caused inspiration to hit me like a freight train. For reference, this would have taken place in-between ch.3 and ch.4 so Vergil would be about 12 years old here. 
> 
> Also this is some extra info on the demon they fight here so if you’d rather not read about it please move on to the story. The demon itself is not strong on its own. By feeding off the negative emotions of individual humans it grows more powerful. The stronger the negative reaction the stronger the demon becomes. 
> 
> Enjoy.

The metal container fell to the ground with an almighty crash. The sound echoed through the empty yard. Vergil looked down from where the container had previously been stacked on top of another. A small bit of satisfaction at the action sparked in his chest. Only to immediately be soured by the sound of his brother’s voice being thrown in his direction. 

“Don’t mess with that, Vergil.”

He didn’t bother to answer. As long as Dante could see him, he could get away with not talking to him. 

Vergil looked back around at his surroundings. The warehouse yard was completely covered with rows and rows of empty shipping containers. Dante and him were in the middle of the yard outside the main warehouse building, which was up against the water. 

The front of the building had a wide area in front of it that was open space, and the rows of containers lined the edges it. The containers fanned out to form a neat circle that spread outwards into more and more rows of them. Trish had said this demon was dangerous and so they needed to stay in groups. He felt his lips turn down at the thought. 

They thought he was stupid enough to not realize it was another way to say they were keeping an eye on him. 

Dante was stationed up against the warehouse wall with his arms crossed. 

Vergil jumped down on to the fallen container. A bang was his answer as his feet met the surface. He could feel Dante’s eyes on him. He ignored him. 

Trish and Lady had gone down the rows to try and get a sense on where this demon was located. The warehouse yard was big, so it wasn’t impossible that the demon would be hiding. 

It would have been faster if they all went looking for it. 

He brought down his foot hard on the metal and was rewarded with the crunch of metal as it made a dent from the force. 

Dante yelled at him again. 

“Vergil! Knock it off!” He finally looked over at the man. 

Dante snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground next to him.

“Get over here. Now.”

The irritation he’d been feeling before was back again. He jumped down from his perch and went back to Dante. Vergil didn’t look at him as he got closer and sat on the ground next to Dante with his back against the warehouse wall.  
The sound of the ocean faintly filled the tense silence. 

Vergil tried to focus on the sounds instead of his brother’s presence next to him. The irritation inside him was slowly building the longer the silence stretched. 

He grit his teeth. 

Vergil didn’t need to apologize. He didn’t do anything wrong. 

In the corner of his eye Dante wasn’t looking at him. He was scanning the space in front of him. Alert. 

The irritation half-morphed into anger. He wasn’t even paying attention to him. The grip he had on the yamato was practically suffocating. His other hand clenched to the point where he could feel his nails digging into his palm. 

Dante still hadn’t looked at him. 

Vergil felt his blood about to boil over from the prolonged silence.

If he hadn’t been looking right at Dante’s face he would have missed the slight change to his expression. Vergil looked in the direction Dante was looking. From one of the rows on the right there was Trish and Lady. They were talking to one another. They stopped when they got close enough to be heard. 

Dante called out, “Hey ladies! Find any good demons around here?”

Trish answered him.

“The demon is definitely here. We found a place that’s likely its hide out.”

“I still say it isn’t in there.”

Trish turned to Lady.

“On what basis are you still making this statement?”

“Instinct. I trust my gut when it comes to demon stuff.” Lady shrugged, “Not all of us can sense demons and I’m getting the feeling that it isn’t here.”

“That’s stupid. All the reports said it was here. Why would they lie about it?” Vergil spit out in response. 

Lady gave him a pointed look. Vergil returned it.

A clap next to him startled him out of their little contest. 

“There’s no harm in checking it out. If it’s not there, no big deal. If it is, then we can get our paycheck early.”

Vergil hoped the glare he was sending up at Dante would wipe that stupid smile off his face. If Lady and Trish made some affirmation to Dante’s words, he didn’t hear them. Next thing, Dante’s moving and Vergil’s gotten up to follow them. Dante’s hand stopped him from making more than a few steps. 

“Why don’t you sit this one out? It’ll be dead before you can get a hit in anyways.” 

_You’re not strong enough to take this demon_. 

Vergil’s grip went even tighter on the yamato. He could feel small trails of blood sliding down his fingers from where his nails bit into his other hand. 

“We shouldn’t leave him here.”

Vergil looked past his brother. Trish was a little ways away from them and had turned back around. 

She continued, “This demon is dangerous to individuals. It’s not safe to leave him alone.”

 _You can’t take care of yourself_. 

Vergil could feel his teeth grinding together. 

Lady, who was further away, projected her voice.

“If he wants to come just let him. It’s not like he’ll get in the way.”

 _You’re useless_.

The last nail in the coffin. His thoughts were clear. They would not get away with treating him like this. He could take care of the demon by himself. He _**would**_ take care of the demon by himself. He would find it before they did and when he killed it they’d see they were wrong to underestimate him. 

Vergil slowly loosened his clenched hands. He took a breath in and spoke in a calm voice.

“I’ll stay. You’ll take care of it quickly, so there’s no need for me to be present.”

A beaming smile from Dante was his answer as he went to join Lady. Trish stayed behind for a moment. She ran him through all of the information she had on the demon with him again. Even had him repeat some of it back to her. Once she was done Vergil was left alone. He waited a few moments after he saw the group disappear behind one of the rows before moving. He went down one of the rows on the left side. 

The dirt crunched underneath his feet. Every few rows he’d turn down another path. Letting his demonic instincts guide him. The further he went from the warehouse, the less organized and neat the container stacks became. Stacks appeared in random order and became more obstacle-like. The once unique clearing in front of the warehouse now appeared every so often due to the disorganization. 

It was passing though one of these clearings that Vergil felt a deep chill crawl up his spine. 

The yamato sang from its sheath. Vergil turned around, ready to face it.

There was nothing.

The chill sat in his spine. He slowly turned in place to take in the area. 

The demon was here. It was faint, but he could feel it. 

As he tried to pinpoint where it was coming from, the demonic aura came rushing in all at once. His breath caught at the sudden weight that pressed in on his chest. He focused on the demonic aura. 

He had to find where it was quickly. **Before** it started to affect him. 

Every turn he made and every scan of the area yielded nothing. 

The demonic aura felt like it was coming from everywhere and when he tried to focus on a particularly strong spot it changed in an instant. 

The weight in his chest got steadily heavier. 

Vergil felt his heart beat thudding faster with each passing second. A blob in the corner of his eye drew his attention. He snapped his sword to the ready. 

He faltered just as quickly. 

Lying face down on the ground, there was a young boy dressed in black shorts and what remained of a black long-sleeved dress shirt. His back was drenched in blood. Vergil forced his eyes to focus on anything but the wounds he knew were there.

The boy didn’t move. 

White hair with partially dried blood streaked through it forced it to lay flat against his head. His face was completely obscured. 

Crimson seeped into the ground around him.

Burning old wounds pulsed along his back at the aching familiarity. He tore his eyes away from the sight. 

Vergil ran through what Trish had told him. The demon created illusions. They couldn’t hurt him. He repeated this to himself in hopes it would calm his racing heart. 

In the corner of his eye, he saw movement. 

The boy’s hand was reaching out to him, a tremble to that stabbed through, bloody hand. His heart slowed a smidge, but nothing could stop the spike his heart took at hearing someone else use his voice.

“ **Dante?** ”

The broken sound of that voice felt like he was looking into the past. 

A past he didn’t want to remember. 

“ **Lady?** ”

Two mismatched eyes throwing an indifferent look his way. 

“ **Trish?** ”

Blonde hair. Eyes that would look through him sometimes.

The pressure in his chest kept getting heavier. 

“ **Where are you?** ”

The yamato was solid in his hands. He didn’t need any help. 

He didn’t need anyone. 

“ **Don’t leave me…** ”

His hands shook. He pretended not to hear the child as it started to cry. 

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes and he blinked them away. He tried to bring back his thoughts to the demon. 

It was playing with him. If he didn’t give in he could kill it. 

There was no need for anyone else. 

His breath caught again as a bigger weight crashed and dragged at his chest. 

The blade clattered to the ground. His heart beat was in his ears. 

Kneeling on one knee to quickly grab it, Vergil couldn’t push himself up to stand. His feet felt like lead. Vergil pushed to stand again and fell to the side as his legs gave out. 

Frustration brought back the tears to his eyes. He looked around, trying to find the demon. 

There was nothing here.

He turned every which way around himself with his heart beat still pounding in his ears.

The weight in his chest started to change. Still just as heavy, it morphed into an emotion he hated.

 **Fear**. It crawled up his throat. 

He was **alone**. 

**Alone and _vulnerable_**. 

Wetness hit the back of his hands. He rubbed at the tears running down his cheeks. Ordered himself to stop it. The fear kept growing. 

_No one was coming for him_.

A choked sob left him and he covered his mouth. 

No matter how many times he swiped the tears away, more replaced them. 

_Don’t abandon me_. 

The image from earlier came to mind. 

Lady, already leaving without a second glance. 

Trish, reminding him of his incompetence. 

Dante, happy to leave him behind. 

Vergil curled in on himself. Sobs tore through his throat and his shoulders shook. He covered his face with his hands. 

Fear pressed down on his chest. Another broken sob escaped him. 

He was weak.

He couldn’t protect himself. 

The air around him was thick and heavy, which made breathing even more difficult.

 _I don’t want to die_.

The pressure lifted from his chest as he felt something fly right over him. 

Vergil took a sharp inhale of breath. He put his hands down from his face. 

There was Dante in his devil trigger, chasing after what had to be the demon they were hunting. It was huge and spector-like from the waist down. Then his vision was blocked by someone else who crouched down in front of him. Trish. He grabbed the hilt of the yamato next to him and rubbed at his cheek with the heel of his palm. 

Without a word, she picked him up in her arms and stood. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her neck. Behind her, Vergil saw Lady joining in the hunt with Dante. That was all he saw before the world became a blur as Trish fled the scene with him. 

Vergil closed his eyes and focused on breathing. The cool air felt sharp as it went down his torn throat. He could still feel his heart beating frantically. 

Once his breath was back to normal did he open his eyes. They’d stopped moving. 

A look around showed familiar buildings. They were back in Red Grave. 

He took another breath and pushed away from Trish. She complied and set him back on the ground. He wiped at the remaining tear trails with his free hand. In one of her hands was something also familiar. Before he could reach out for it, she was already presenting the yamato’s sheath to him. The blade slid inside it with a satisfying click. 

“You really should put that away,” Trish remarked, “Don’t want humans asking questions.”

Vergil mentally agreed. He banished the sword to a pocket dimension. 

Or he tried to. 

The sheathed blade still sat in his hand. 

He tried to clear his thoughts and focus on where he was sending the sword. His mind felt like a complete mess. Nothing worked. Tears of frustration almost spilled over. 

“I can’t-,“ his voice cracked on the last word. 

“Yes, you can,” a hand pressed on where he held the sword and another cupped the side of his head. Her thumb pressed against the middle of his brow.

“Focus.”

Vergil took a deep breath and shakily let it out. 

They had done this before when Trish had taught him how to use pocket dimensions. There was a tear in space somewhere. All he had to do was find it. 

For some reason, Trish’s hands were grounding and he found the space with ease. The sword disappeared in a quick flash of blue light. 

Trish let go of where her hands had been. He felt a small spark of loneliness at the loss of contact, which turned to annoyance when she slightly ruffled his hair. She walked over to a bench a couple feet away and he fixed his hair as he followed. Trish sat down and threw both her arms along the back of the bench. Vergil sat to her left. 

They didn’t say anything. 

Vergil could still hear his heart beating faster than normal. He felt the urge to lean against Trish, but threw the thought away. It was childish. 

“I’m sorry.”

Confusion written on his face, Vergil looked up at Trish. She stared back.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone when we didn’t know where that demon was.”

“It was my choice.”

“Even so, I knew the most about that demon. I should have known it would target you.”

Vergil’s eyebrows crinkled together at the statement. That didn’t seem right. The demon had eventually shown up, but he had been seeking it out too. The weight on his chest had been almost unbearable by the end of it. 

“Can you help me write about it?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. He explained, “Your research lacked personal encounters with the demon. I can tell you about my experience.”

She hummed in thought. A hand fell on his left shoulder and drew him to lean against her. 

“Maybe later.”

Vergil quelled the light feelings of comfort bubbling up to the surface of his thoughts. A few escaped his grasp and he felt himself relax as he leaned back against Trish. 

No more words passed between them. The occasional car passed by on the otherwise empty roads. The setting sun was casting an orange hue on everything it touched. In this peace, Vergil could finally hear the wind over the sound of his heart. More than once he felt his eyes start to close. He felt completely drained. 

The next moment, he felt someone lightly shaking his shoulder and calling his name. He cracked open his eyes. Lady was standing in front of them. 

“How’re you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he mumbled. 

She didn’t look convinced, “Get some rest when you guys get home. I know Dante will, but you need it.”

Vergil sat up and rubbed his eyes. He looked to the side of Lady, but didn’t see any familiar red coat. 

On the roof across the street, a red demon appeared and jumped down to the pavement below. Transforming during the fall, Dante landed on his feet and made his way over to them.

Vergil felt a pat on his back and the weight to his right leave the bench. Lady nodded at him, “Take it easy.” Trish waved at him before the two of them were off towards their shared home. 

By the time they were leaving, Dante was in front of him. An easy grin on his face, like usual. 

“You ready to go sleeping beauty?”

Vergil didn’t have the energy to retort that comment. Instead he just hummed in agreement. 

“Come on, we have a few blocks to walk before we get back to the shop.”

The mere idea of walking that far was tiring. He rubbed his eyes again. 

“Unless you want to sleep out here.”

He put his head in his hands and hummed again in response. Without looking up, Vergil reached his arms up towards Dante.

“Carry me.”

“What!? You must be feeling better already if you’re trying to boss **me** around.”

He didn’t really feel like keeping up the joke and lowered his arms. 

Everything felt exhausting. Dante was making some increasingly annoying sound. He was about to snap at him to knock it off when Dante sighed very loudly. 

“Alright.” 

Vergil looked up in time to see Dante turn away from him and get down on one knee. 

“Get on little bro. I want to go home sooner rather than later.”

Vergil froze for a second, not expecting him to comply. Then he was on his brother’s back with his arms wrapped around Dante’s neck. Dante stood up with his arms supporting Vergil’s weight and started the walk back to the shop. 

A steady rhythm as Dante walked kept lulling Vergil to close his eyes. In one of those moments he heard Dante start talking.

“Hey.”

Vergil peeled his eyes open and looked at Dante’s side profile. He wasn’t looking back at him. 

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Vergil adjusted his hold around Dante’s neck. Those words started to make their way up his throat, and unlike every other time, the words didn’t get stuck halfway. 

In a quiet voice, but just loud enough that Dante would hear, Vergil replied, “I love you too.”

Dante looked over at him with a big smile on his face.

“Did you say something?”

Vergil turned his head away.

“No.”

“Hm. I was sure you said something.”

“You’re hearing things.”

Vergil buried his head into Dante’s shoulder. His face felt warm. 

Nothing else happened on the quiet walk back to the shop. As soon as they made it to the shop Vergil went straight to the couch, curled up on it, and closed his eyes. 

Normally he didn’t like to take naps. Today was an exception. His breaths started to come slowly and he felt the pull of sleep at his mind. A soft blanket fell on top of him followed by his brother ruffling his hair. Eyes still closed, he swatted the hand away and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. The sound of the fan overhead slightly creaking filled the room until his dreams pulled him under.

**Author's Note:**

> Even though this bonus chapter was completely unplanned I feel like it was a nice little extra chunk to end the series. For those who wanted more insight into my lore on this whole thing, here you go:
> 
> When I saw last year’s Spardaverse content I thought it was all very inspiring. Many people had wonderful thoughts and ideas, and this year was no different. One thing I noticed last year was that there were two extremes most people went with when utilizing these different universes. (Which isn’t a bad thing! It was just something I noticed.) On one hand, there could only be one version of a person in a universe at a time so the two different versions of that person would have to swap places with each other in order for it to work. The other side of it was that two different versions of a person could exist in the same universe without any trouble at all. So I started thinking, “What if there was a middle ground?”
> 
> Thus, I created this world. Two Vergil’s could exist in the same universe, but the universe would also try to correct this by sharing the memories of each Vergil with the other. That way no matter what Vergil the universe ended up with they would technically be the same person. Not taking into account that one of them is 9 years old and the other has 30+ years of memories on him. This is why older!Vergil was able to be up-to-date with young!Vergil’s life, but young!Vergil was only able to get up to Nelo Angelo memories over the course of about five years. If young!Vergil had stayed in this universe he would have to go through all of older!Vergil’s memories to catch up with the present. 
> 
> I’ve never written such a long series before, let alone publish it. I’m very proud with how it turned out and I hope y’all got some enjoyment out of my fun. As always, feel free to leave any questions or comments. 
> 
> Thank you and have a lovely day.


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